I took a writing course once, and I remember the first free writing assignment vividly. I learned something that day about listening.
The assignment was to write about my morning ritual. Like many others, I wrote about what I did every morning. Afterwards, I started thinking about the word “ritual”, and I realized that I had simply written about my routine in the morning. Was that actually a ritual? According to Webster’s dictionary, a ritual is “an act or series of acts regularly repeated in a set precise manner” or “a ceremonial act or action”. The first could, I suppose, apply to a morning routine, but it was the second that caught my attention: it dawned on me that my ritual in the morning was making the coffee – a ceremonial series of precise steps that I perform for myself every morning.
When I wake up, even before I’m up and moving, I anticipate my coffee. Not just the first cup, but the act of making it, the ritual. The same steps every morning: filling the kettle with water, opening the fridge and getting out the grounds (always Tim Horton’s), taking out my favourite cup, rinsing the glass coffee pot – there is ceremony in this set of actions.
The pot I use is one that I have to replace periodically, as I have a tendency to break one every year or so. It must be sparkling clean. I put a paper filter in the Melitta cone and measure in the coffee – half decaffeinated and half hazelnut. Then one half cup of skim milk measured into a microwave safe mug (not my special cup), and heated for 40 seconds. By now the kettle is boiling, and I pour a little hot water into my special cup. It is wide and flat, and probably meant for café au lait or something else exotic. It had a saucer once, long since lost or broken, but I don’t miss it. The cup is a rich, deep shade of blue, made of some kind of thick pottery, and there is only one, used exclusively for my morning coffee.
Next I start pouring boiling water over the coffee grounds. The aroma is wonderful. I pour some boiling water into my carafe, a fancy name for an insulated jug that will keep my coffee hot, to warm it. As the coffee splashes gently into the bottom of the pot, I empty the hot water out of my special cup (now warmed sufficiently), pour in the heated milk, and take out my milk frother, a funny little gadget that was given to me by a friend years ago. Battery operated, it has a little wheel on the end that I immerse in the hot milk. Pressing the button whirls the milk to create a thick layer of foam on top.
The coffee is ready now. I pour some into my special cup and the rest into the heated jug. I take my first sip of coffee for the day. Heavenly. My day has started.
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